Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Moment-Mementos


 Ah, comforting sorrow for always tomorrow 
begins what is ending and ends what begins...


Momentous mementos
In sock-footed tempos
Pray, where does the day go
Nay, where go the years
While love learns to savor
The essence and flavor
Of Present’s kind favor
That soft disappears

Ah, momentous kindling
Of moment-pence dwindling
Where pay-off is mingling
With love’s daily loss
Ah, swift and sound spending
Of round and round vending
With dusk soon upending
Blue towers of dross

Momentous abandon
Like notes of a canon
Ah, breath-stealing ocean
Of laughter and tears
Soft-folding the bower
Soft-holding the flower
Soft-molding the hour
That soft-disappears

Momentous mementos 
A mayhem of rainbows
A love-song of echoes
Darling, draw me near
For here in the molding 
The hard part of holding
Is softly unfolding
What will disappear

© Janet Martin



Monday, March 25, 2019

Hereafter...



 

Yesterday I had the hilarious pleasure of reading for the first time, the above gem-of-a-book written
 by Dr. Seuss for 'us older/obselete children' 😊
someone suggested at my sister's birthday party it might inspire my poem for today!
In a way it has but unfortunately not with the  
fantastic funny-bone that some fortunate writers are blessed to have;
 For the little I know, this one thing I have learned...
 We cannot thrive unless we work with what God gave us:)

This poem is inspired by bits and pieces of the week-end; 
conversation at my sister's 50th birthday party,
 Emily Dickinson's poetry and
a daughter whose due-date for New Baby is tomorrow!



Who knows what waits hereafter
Where mite-y/mighty moments haste
Will loss have earned the laughter
That gain can never taste

Will sorrow’s badge of honour
Bestow a fuller joy
And press its crown upon Her
Who bore its girl or boy

Will hunger be a blessing
And indulgence a curse
And scars the sacred dressing
Of labor, reimbursed

And will we learn through teaching
As seasons come and go
We are all tall when reaching
And small in What We Know

© Janet Martin

Ah, March, Spring's Preface

In spite of the 'b-r-r-r-risk' beginning to the week we may still feel optimistic
because it's March and sunny today! and we can look forward to temps minus
the minus-dash in front of the digit😁


 ...an expansion of Saturday's poem March Mosaic 
because it barely brushed the surface of Spring's Preface!
 (my, how we welcome those bashful buds that begin to stir in greenhouses and grocery-stores!)

The girth of earth is brown with mud and mirth of winter’s waning tide
A modest panoramic wake of mute and matted countryside
The joy of expectation poised on thatched patchwork of bronze and brass
Waits at a gate with baited breath for innocence of soft green grass

The dark wind wails and waves a wand of pussy-willow pillowed fronds
Where rusty reeds like ragamuffins shiver in ditches and ponds
The bashful bud begins to stir beneath the whisper of a dream
And hope makes dreamers of us all where winter has run out of steam

Anticipation is a gift that keeps the weight of dread at bay
March grants to weathered hearts a lift where blue and gold duels with gray
The distance between here and there excites and invites us to dance
Upon a welcome mat where morning wears the air of first romance

The saucy robins reappears and cheers us with its lusty trill
The kiss of sun is warm and charms the chill of storm to giddy thrill
The pitter-pat of rain-drop splat is like laughter or music-notes
Because we know within its flow a wonder-world of flowers floats

Those white decoys that March deploys is but Jack Frost's noisy retreat
A blust'ring bit of fluff-bluff as gruff ruffians fall to defeat
Where canvases of color throb beneath the somber aftermath
Of gales, as violet-gilded trails emerge to purge death from earth's path

And picnic-baskets find frayed blankets on brook-banks, in meadow-rooms
Ah March, your stiff-starched orderlies sweep out the world with woolly brooms
On battlefields where winter yields but not without one last fierce fling
Ah March, you are the age-old star that leads us from winter to spring


© Janet Martin


Saturday, March 23, 2019

March Mosaic...

The snow recedes leaving the impression of earth at low tide...



The girth of earth is brown with mud and mirth of winter’s waning tide
A modest panoramic sweep of mute and matted countryside
The joy of expectation poised on thatched patchwork of bronze and brass
Waits at a gate with baited breath for innocence of soft green grass

The dark wind wails and wakes the wand of pussy-willow pillowed fronds
Where rusty reeds like ragamuffins shiver in ditches and ponds
The bashful bud begins to stir beneath the whisper of a dream
And hope makes dreamers of us all where winter has run out of steam

© Janet Martin

Friday, March 22, 2019

Timeless...


 No matter how long ago a Book was written, when it is Truth it is timeless.
I was marveling to someone how so much of what is written in the book
A Man called Peter is still as relevant today as then...
And then it hit me; because it is truth and truth is Timeless.

No wonder Jesus said, 
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.
Matt. 24:35

Ah, trustworthy Truth with nothing to hide
Where man can find comfort in Time's dogged tide
In a world of confusion and ignorance
Truth flies the banner of deliverance
Truth flies the banner of God's assurance!

This is a page-spread from Peter Marshall's Sermon
The American Dream preached in the late 30's to early or mid-40's
yet seems spoken for today!
 (click on image to enlarge)

Always unhindered
Through summer and winter
Tick-tock’s ready tinder
Kindles steady change
Where future-faced forces
From past-based resources
Cannot thwart the courses
Fools try to derange  

Always unflinching
Through whirling and inching
Unfurling and cinching
Where tides tug and chase
As over and under
And through us the thunder
Of moments woo wonder
New moments replace

Always unmoving
Its evidence proving
In spite of man’s ruling
The matters of fact
Where all else estranges
What all else exchanges
But all of time’s changes
Leaves the truth intact

© Janet Martin

For the Whole American Dream message click here

Of Heart-parts and Footfalls


 Celebrated three birthdays yesterday; 
Always a reminder of Time's precious,swift gift!

No time like the present to make the most of It!

My, the heart can throb with wonder
My the heart can ache with care
My, how it can quake and thunder
As we press it into prayer

My, time’s force of doors is subtle
My, the course of life is brief
Bitty baby kiss and cuddle
Before love’s incumbent grief

My, the matrix of Mere Moment
Steals our breath with death’s approach
Soft its seasons seal and augment
Present where Unknowns encroach

My, the mold that holds soul’s Bearing
Shaping names and frames we hug
Always keeps the heart preparing
For love’s next confounding tug

My, the Time we have is precious
Mortal with Immortal shod
Where the quick of tick-tock ushers
Every footfall back to God


© Janet Martin